A View from Sierra County

Liam's Visit to Forest City

Our holiday weekend was jam-packed but I still managed a post or two... somehow, here we are at mid-week and I haven't even filled you in on the weekend yet.  KUTO proceeded in and around family fun, and I was able to mail off 5 squares to Kay on Monday for one of the Oliver's Fund blankies she is sewing up... if you haven't had the chance yet, take a look at the quilt-block arrangements she has been putting together as well as her first sewn quilt.  I also made it past the half-way point on my teen-sized boucle blankie.

One of the fun events was meeting Stephanie and her son Liam up at our Forest City house and giving them a tour of the historic townsite on Sunday... Liam has been jealous that his mom got to come up there and spin last summer and also got to knit at our other historic monument  house, where the word "Yank" is carved into the massive front door, letting the owner's true sentiments be known (if you want me to regale you with Civil War history as it pertains to early California, write privately as that is even more arcane than some of the fiber info I post).

My photos turned out rather ghostly, as it was a dark and gloomy afternoon in a mainly non-electric building, which may well be appropriate for a visit to a near-ghost town.  Here, Glenn is pointing out the different eras of the town's history through while Stephanie and Liam look on... the town of course got its start during the initial Gold Rush of 1849 but its heyday came much later, in the 1870s and 1880s, when it was home to the largest (gold) drift mine in the state.  The price of gold was cheaper than dirt is today, but still high enough for many to accumulate substantial wealth, though you wouldn't know it when visiting today.  Nature is a terrific healer, if you give her enough time, and the scars are mostly covered in forest now.

 

Liam liked this exhibit of early camping gear, but his passion is collecting glass and ceramic insulators; he is excited because there is a big show and sale this coming weekend only seventy miles from us and mom has agreed to take him.

Glenn was a good person for him to meet, as he was quite a collector as a boy - old bottles, beer cans, insulators, camping gear... most of the items in the Forest City Historical Association's tiny 'attic' style
museum were either from his collections or from our house, which he purchased in 1985 and proceeded to rehab from four decades of neglect.  There was actually tin nailed over the doors and windows and he bought it without being able to get inside, where it turned out there was a wealth of household treasures... some wonderful and some chewed up by critters.  Good thing he's an archaeologist, eh?

Laim looks like a ghost but really he just moves around a lot!  He was talking with both voice and hands about his typewriter collection (guess what?  Glenn collects those too!)

Inside the main museum room.... dark ain't it?  Although our historical association worked to get power restored, so far it is only wired to the barroom and the dance room... the portions utilized when we rent out the building to people for parties, weddings, etc.  There is no power to this portion yet... hey, we are a small and poor non-profit!

This photo turned out to be the best of all the ones I tried to take... and I saved you from viewing the very worst, believe me! This is a collection of 'longboards', the term used in the 19th century in our parts for skis... they really WERE very long, and those used for racing downhill were 12 feet or more in length... a single pole was dragged in between your legs (with you squatting down to provide additional drag) to come to a stop.  I have always wondered about injuries....

Come and visit in spring or summer and you will get a brighter and warmer view of this amazing historic district... almost a ghost town but still occupied, and a very special corner of my world.

Tales from the Yarn Shop

I know there were a lot of complaints about shopping hype on Black Friday, so I thought I would fill you in on how important the holiday shopping season is for the LYS where I work part-time.  We are both lucky and unlucky to be located on the main street of the downtown historic district in Grass Valley.  The exposure is great, as the downtown has become more and more pedestrian-oriented, but the rents have climbed accordingly.  There are many things a yarn shop needs to carry and some sit around for a long time, while others (most notably books) have a narrow profit margin.  It is hard to make a profit.

Black Friday originally was dubbed that name because for many businesses, they were finally coming out of the red for the year... especially some of the smaller ones.  I don't know about the yarn shops where you live, but I learned from a customer yesterday that there are towns much bigger than our two (Grass Valley and Nevada City, where there is a yarn shop in each) that have NO local yarn shop.  I can remember when our region didn't either, and hope I won't have to go back to such days.  We were ecstatic to 'do the math' and realize that this year's Friday-Saturday Thanksgiving weekend sales were better overall than last year's.  Maybe we can hang in there another year....

Keeping a yarn shop in my area is not the greatest reward I get from my job.  The real treat is the people who come in.... one of my sweet successes was helping a grandmother select yarns to make the Brushed Lace Cardigan from this winter's Interweave Knits for her teen--aged granddaughter.  We spent a good deal of time selecting a similar range of colors from Berroco Ultra Alpaca, taking them to the window and making sure they blended well... I loved seeing her concern that she select something her granddaughter would like and wear for a long time, and wished her every success.

I had an even better time helping the young girl with the edgy haircut who came in with sis, mom, and gran and proceeded to select yarns for projects for almost all of them (it turned out that grandmother could knit, and was advising as well as keeping little sis occupied as we pored over patterns and matched up yarns).  This child reminded me of myself when very young, passionate to try hats and mittens, eager to learn how to make I-cord for the purse handle of a small felted bag, and delighted to realize she already knew how to decrease and could make the triangular slanted flap that so intrigued her.  She left with a large bag of yarns (for two hats, two scarves, one for sis and one for mom, and one purse), pattern magazines, needles and a great big grin on her face.

I gained a new value for Knit Simple, as I dug up the issue that showed how to make hats for everyone in the family from five gauges, and the one that showed mittens in many sizes... I might not buy these for myself, already having lots of experience with both, but they were new and richly exciting finds for her and she will be in the next generation of designers pushing the frontiers of knitting!

Speaking of frontiers, I was pleased to be able to steer a couple seeking a present towards Nicky Epstein's books; they could only remember part of her name, but enough for me to realize they were seeking inspiration for a knitter on their gift list.

I don't always get the whole story from my brief encounter with a customer... there was the mom and gran picking yarns with two young boys and it was not until they were on the way out that gran, a semi-regular customer, mentioned to me that the daughter was a new knitter and her task had been to make sure the hats weren't going to be beyond her abilities... then, there was another repeat customer who was trying to keep her patience while teaching her sister to knit.  There was a woman coming back to purchase more yarn, for a baby blanket she told me.  Apparently, she had come in the day before Thanksgiving, started knitting over the holiday and realized that she had not gotten nearly enough so was making sure to buy more to take home with her and finish....

The yarns that cross the counter are a frequent inspiration to me... Lang Zoom, Nashua's Wooly Stripes and Julia, Manos, to name a few from yesterday.  I can easily get so many new ideas that I will never get around to finishing or even starting... the latest to be added to my Ravelry queue was the Circle Vest in Silk Knits.  I think I might want to spin and dye my own hand-painted yarn for that one!

I will be taking next Saturday off to spend with DH on his birthday, but look forward to my Saturdays at the shop and the surprises that our customers bring to us each time I am there.  We provide exceptional customer service, if I do say so myself, and gain immense joy while doing it.

Giving Forward

The holiday season is just getting started and I am trying to stay focused on what is truly important: living my beliefs, loving my family, sharing with those I love, and looking out for those who don't have the champions they deserve.  I braved the big world on Black Friday, but avoided the malls and most of the stores... I have been working with DH to get him a motorcycle (partly for the fuel economy and partly for the fun) and it happened that the pieces lined up on Wednesday but my holiday cooking plans wouldn't be disrupted for something as mundane as a major purchase, so off we went today.  The weather was bright and cold and not what usually greets us over Thanksgiving weekend.  The Xmas muzak and decorations were garish and I was happy to have the mountains to retreat home to... and some knitting for others and blog reading.

I have a lot of favorite reads... far more than I have time to visit regularly.  So, I was surprised to pay a visit to Anne this morning and discover that I was only the second person to comment on her joining in Liz's Pay It Forward endeavor, a different way to 'exchange' energy.  Rather than the usual blog-swap, this concept appealed to me partly because of the serendipity involved, and partly because it fits my belief system of doing good without thought of return.  I won't know until three of you speak up and decide you want to participate as well just who I am gifting, or what, or when, only that I will send a hand-made gift to you by November 24, 2008.

The basic premise is this:

I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

So, if you'd like to Pay It Forward, just be one of the first 3 commenters on today's post, then post the above 'rules' on your own blog and keep the energy moving.  Now, this is the kind of holiday music I like to hear.

Eye Candy Friday

A late bloomer, the Amaranth is finally fading away and fall blending into winter here in the foothills of the Sierras.

I am hoping to enjoy leftovers and knitting today, finishing up a few more squares for the US Oliver raffle quilt and send them off to Kay on Monday.  I will be avoiding Black Friday purchases but encouraging them tomorrow on my LYS day... such is the life in the retail knit shop world, where sales are slow on warm summer days, brisk when it is raining, and one must hope for the best in order to keep the doors open!

Thanksgiving Makes Me Smile

Knitnana has tagged me with a 'people that make me smile' meme and it is appropriate to post this for my Thanksgiving entry... my family makes me smile and even laugh, so when I saw an ad for a Laughter Yoga class in yesterday's paper, I decided I didn't even need to call, I'm getting plenty of that, and very thankful to be so lucky to have all of my adult children live close by and to be so close to them. 

DD and I made pumpkin pies this morning and there will be a large turkey in our oven; we have made it past the lean decade (or more) when they were young and I was struggling, both in my first marriage and later as a single mama, and I am very thankful for that and for the abundance of the region where I live and where much of the food for our feast has been raised.

I live in such a beautiful place, and that makes me rich in ways money never will and I am thankful for that.
I am also thankful that I live in an era when I can form such strong friendships with people I will rarely if ever get to spend time with in person.  There are a few special people who make me smile every time I get the chance to visit their blogs or converse with them:

Margene
Stephanie
Sallee
Susan
Sylvia
Sharon

While this isn't a 'tag' in the usual sense, any of you who wants to post about who or what makes you smile, or simply comment to me, please do so.  And a Happy Thankgiving to all!

WIPs for Carole

In the interesting way that blogging begets blogging, I decided to alter this post I was working on and get it up before Thanksgiving.  You see, today Carole was commenting on how people often are waiting until an item is finished to post photos rather than show you WIPs.  Well there are a few on the needles around here that you have already seen (Lacy Kerchief is still awaiting the last yarn needed to arrive in the mail), but there are also a few you haven't.

This EZ Baby Surprise jacket will be a Christmas gift for baby Jude, Glenn's new grandson born at the end of June... I am using Cascade Fixation because they live down in the hot climate of Texas, and it will be plenty stretchy enough to wear for quite awhile.

I also started something for myself last week, Sivia Harding's Victorian Shoulderette.

The yarn is Anne's Wooly Wonka Fibers Blue-Faced Leicester superwash... I bought one of her first sock kits, the Boudica design by Miriam Felton, but decided this fall to put off making the socks and use the yarn for this perfect little accessory.

Most of my knitting this week will continue to be the KUTO objects I featured yesterday, but now you know more of my secrets!

A Little Less Talk... A Lot More Action!

This weekend, I devoted part of my knitting time to getting my Knit Unto Others projects lined up for the next two weeks (and beyond, since I always think I can accomplish more than actually happens).

My first project is also my November UFO Resurrection (don't you just love how I can multi-task?!).  I started this blanket back a year ago, when I found Lion Boucle at the Dollar Tree for a $1 a ball...

One of my friends who runs the North San Juan Family Resource Center where I offer Adult Ed GED Prep classes each week had decided to try and start a handwork group, with Project Linus as one possible recipient of the efforts... however, she and I were the only people to turn up and we weren't able to keep up our spirits, or the schedule she originally chose, and my blanket languished.  Then, this fall I met the director of a very special program here in my area, called the Kare Crisis Nursery, that offers round-the-clock, drop-in respite care for parents in emergencies or crisis.  She and one of the many volunteers who make this program possible were enrolled in the infant/toddler development class I and a co-worker both needed to take this fall... turns out, he has also volunteered there, doing carpentry work for them during his summer off from directing our Headstart preschool program.  I decided to finish my blanket for them during KUTO... and as you can see, I am about halfway there.  I am aiming for a 40-inch square blanket, and making great progress.  The blanket may end up bigger, or I may divide my ten skeins into two, depending on the yardage I get.

Margene and Carole have picked 'little things' as their focus this year, so I am also making sure that I have several small squares ready to mail by the end of the Thanksgiving weekend for Oliver's American Blanket.  Most of you already know that Kay of Mason-Dixon fame has offered to be the American hostess/seamstress for squares added to this raffle.

These little four inch squares make up quickly from leftover sock yarn, and though the ones I am making this week will be mailed off to Kay, I had the inspiration this afternoon to keep on making squares, with some help from my friends.  You see, though the Kare Crisis Nursery said they would happily accept knitted blankets, but what they really want is quilts.  So, having a background in both arts, I have decided that my primary knitting for peace endeavor for 2008 will be to continue making squares and to arrange them in quilt patterns based on the four-inch square.  This is where I need some help from my friends... I would love your left-over sock yarn (if it is superwash wool) and would welcome your help. 

My four-inch squares are based on the basic warshrag pattern (same as the directions for Oliver's raffle).  I am also leaving a long tail at the start and end to help with the sewing-up, which I will do (see, Allison, I really DO love the mattress stitch now).  Many of you who are contributing to Kay's efforts will be tired of squares (for a while), but keep in mind that I will be doing this indefinitely.  Just leave a comment or email me (burrobird AT gmail DOT com).

There is a third knitting for peace project that will not even get off the ground until after KUTO is through, and that is a group blanket, made from superwash worsted weight squares that Stephanie has initiated, for all of our Knit Night group to join together in producing.  We will be finding a local charity for that as well.

I did spend some time on personal knitting as well, but will show you what I am working on for myself later in the week, as I am really trying to be less selfish and give a little this week... our fiber guild is also working hard to get items together to donate to the Nevada County foster care program by our annual Christmas party in mid-December and I do have two items already set aside for that, but will be trying to make a few more hats by then.

I have not been keeping you all up-to-date on my Ravelry progress... I became a group moderator a few weeks ago for a fun forum our shop is sponsoring; you may have already gotten my invite to our 'fibers grass valley' group, but if not, drop on by and invite yourself! This week's conversation has been trying to find out which knitting magazines REALLY help and inspire you, and I would love to have your responses!

Eye Candy Friday

It's been a long week even though it was a short one for work... as if we had to condense down five days into four.  I am glad that the Thanksgiving holiday is approaching, not just because I love the food.  I am also looking forward to some family time, some down time and maybe even some blog time!

This Friday's Eye Candy is one of the few good photos I managed to get last weekend on my visit to Reno and Virginia City.
It captures the heart of what I love about the Nevada desert... a BIG sky and a diverse terrain.  My new SIL, Ryoko has only been in the US for about three months now, and hadn't seen the desert outside of Reno.... she was fascinated by the variety of colors and the interesting rock formations... however, I was doing the driving while she was taking the photos.

If you click on the photo, you will see, right where the hills come together near the bottom of this photo, the last fall color on the cottonwoods of Six Mile Canyon, just east of Virginia City.  I love this place, even with its tacky museums and touristy shops... the history is still thick around the place, the buildings remain mostly authentic thanks to its being one of the largest historic districts in the country, and the landscape around it mostly undeveloped.

We poked around up and down the main street and admired the buildings, as well as showing her the school where Glenn and and her DH Dave's grandma Elsie went to grammar school...

The day was cloudy and cool, but this week has brought still-lingering warmer temperatures.  There isn't any snow in the mountains and I don't need gloves yet in the morning while driving to work, two sure signs that the season is dragging its feet in changing from fall to early winter.  This coming weekend will be filled with holiday preparations and Knitting Unto Others .  I hosted the first Knit Night of winter, sponsored by Stephanie and I, on Tuesday, and we decided to make a group blanket, and I will also finish my blanket started last December and donate it to my local Kare Crisis Nursery, and maybe even whip up a few four inch squares over the next two weeks. 

There are a few more small knitting projects going on around camp, and I got to get my wonderful, crimpy pencil roving from the fleece Sharon and I purchased at the end of July (she and I did NOT get a visit, which bummed us both out, but we are each happily contemplating what to make from our Coopworth treasures from Harvey Farms).
  So much to do and so little time... if only I could give up sleep!

National Blog Month? Not Me!

As you probably already know, Margene and many other people are striving to post every day this month... but for me that has proven to be an impossible feat.  I have been gone away from home (and adequate computer access) more than usual in November.  It was a wonderful holiday weekend, with a mix of a guest to tour through our own backcountry on Friday, a short stint at the yarn shop job on Saturday, a dramatic rainstorm (which interrupted peaceful sleep) overnight from Saturday to Sunday, then two days visiting with relatives in Reno and Lake Tahoe.  I even was able to get my processed Harvey Farms fleece from Sharon, who dropped it off at my BIL's house on her way to lunch with two other Reno-area spinners (but not me, as I was taking my new SIL to see the desert) and will have more to share throughout the week.

I did manage to felt this lovely beret that got knitted up last week from more of my Ultra Alpaca, though the photo is 'pre-felted' stage:

The beret dried while we were away and it was too late and too dark when we got home last night to model or get any photos, so I will thrill you with those later... suffice it to say that this pattern, from Felted Knits, is fast, easy and stylish and there will be another made before winter gets too blustery... a grrl's gotta stay warm somehow!

Saturday Sky

From last Saturday's sojourn in the back country....